Your Morning Phil: Peavy, Sveum, Pudge

Talking baseball while standing in the crowded checkout line at the Stanley Cup playoffs:

1. No one knew what to expect from Jake Peavy this season, including Peavy and the staff supporting him.

“I’m optimistic and hopeful, as I’m optimistic and hopeful in all areas,’’ pitching coach Don Cooper told me the final week of spring training. “If he’s healthy and strong, he will be able to go out and pitch effectively. He’s done that before even when he’s (lost) his strength.’’

Peavy is a season and a half away from his 2010 surgery for a detached lat, and long ago came to grips with the fact that he’s not the young buck who won the NL Cy Young in 2007. He was excited for this season because he figured he would be as ready to compete as he’d been since the White Sox traded for him, and he’s quickly established that he’s still a factor.

A big factor.

His three-hit shutout of the Oakland Athletics on Monday night was his fourth consecutive quality start, making him 3-0 with a 1.88 ERA. He’s pitched against strong lineups (Texas and Detroit), a so-so lineup (Baltimore) and a weak lineup (Oakland), and he’s been a big part of why the Sox are one of the most pleasant surprises in the majors.

He’s been durable -- ranking behind only Justin Verlander, Jered Weaver, Felix Hernandez and James Shields in innings pitched through four starts -- and staggeringly effective in keeping hitters off balance.

Peavy’s strikeout total -- five -- was down on Monday, when he got only seven swings-and-misses in his 107 pitches. His velocity was down a tick from his start against the Orioles five days earlier, and after using a 92-mph fastball to get a swinging strikeout on the first batter of his night, Jemile Weeks, he did throw a fastball past another hitter. But he had terrific command on all his pitches, and the 89-91 mph fastballs were weapon enough to keep hitters from sitting on off-speed pitches.

When it was over, A’s manager Bob Melvin and his hitters didn’t gush about Peavy’s stuff, as they do when teams are prone to do when they’re shut down by an elite pitcher. But Peavy got all the affirmation he needed by watching hitters return to the dugout, continuing a trend that started against the Tigers in the U.S. Cellular home opener. Peavy beat Max Scherzer, holding the Tigers’ vaunted lineup to two hits and two walks in 6 2-3 innings.

He’s built off that success the last two starts, and look at these numbers:

Peavy’s 0.73 WHIP (walks + hits divided by innings pitched) is the best in the AL, just ahead of Weaver (0.78) and Verlander (0.80). His .172 opponents’ batting average ranks behind Verlander (.157), C.J. Wilson (.159) and Neftali Feliz (.171).

All of these guys are in their primes, not digging deep to get past three consecutive seasons ruined by injuries.

Will Peavy hold up? No one knows. He’ll face a major test on Saturday against the Red Sox at the Cell but then gets an extra day’s rest before a May 4 start in Detroit.

The guess here is he’ll be ready for the extra day’s rest. Along with Philip “Humb, baby’’ Humber and Chris Sale, he found away to hit stride in a hurry after escaping Arizona.

You couldn’t have seen this coming watching Peavy’s final outing of the spring, when White Sox minor-league hitters collected 12 hits in seven innings against him. But Peavy did go seven and he did throw strikes. He was getting ready for his man-on-a-mission crusade, and the opening chapter has been a doozy. Hard to imagine how satisfied he feels today.

2. Dale Sveum’s lineups and substitutions have drawn a lot of criticism on message boards in the early season, with Cubs fans wondering if the new manager knows what he’s doing. The 3-2 victory over the Cardinals, the product of a lineup that had Joe Mather at third base and Jeff Baker at first base, should quiet that down for a little bit. Believe me, unless you’ve crunched numbers for an afternoon, you probably shouldn’t second-guess a Sveum lineup. The players who start, and the way guys are used off the bench, are as much (probably more) the result of the Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer statistical analysis as they are the manager’s instincts.